


Queen of the Dark House

by Miss_M



Category: Babylonian Mythology
Genre: Aunt/Nephew Incest, F/M, Gen, Gods, Sibling Rivalry, Sister-Sister Relationship, Underworld
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-23
Updated: 2016-06-23
Packaged: 2018-07-14 03:41:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,446
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7151630
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Miss_M/pseuds/Miss_M
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ereshkigal understood the rules far better than Inanna. She knew a wife wielded greater power than a mother.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Queen of the Dark House

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Cockaigne](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cockaigne/gifts).



> I was intrigued by a reference to Nergal as the son of Inanna and the version of Inanna’s descent into the underworld in which Tammuz taker her place rather than being the reason for the descent. I own nothing.

Gods could live and die and live again. Gods could love, in their fashion, and they could make love. But there were two things not even gods could do: they could not break laws and rules without consequence, and they could not remember a time before their existence, if there was such a time.

Ereshkigal has always been the queen of Irkalla, the mistress of the dark house, ringed with seven walls with seven gates, where the dead rotted and flitted about with black feathers, feeding on clay and what little rainwater trickled down through the many layers of earth above. Ereshkigal has always been the queen of the dead, the keeper of laws which bound mortal and immortal alike, while her sister Inanna has always been the queen of love and battle, which were so often one and the same. Death and life – the border between must not be violated with impunity.

Unlike her sister, Ereshkigal went about her duties with a suitably grim devotion. Love, laughter, life’s storms did not bother her. She had her courtiers, her servants, the seven judges who helped her pass the last word on every creature which came to her, as most of them did, sooner or later. She did not miss the sun or the wind flinging grains of sand in her hair or the taste of succulent fruits after flooding season. She could not miss what she had never known – no ‘before’ existed for her. 

For Inanna, all was ‘before,’ ‘during’ and ‘after.’ Her loves were many, her whims legion. The sisters rarely met, and distance did not water tenderness between them.

Inanna descended into Ereshkigal’s domain, strode boldly in as though Ereshkigal’s house had no mistress, shedding her jewels and clothes at every gate with the scornful laugh of one beautiful and full of sap, who needed no decoration save her own flesh. When Ereshkigal entered her throne room and saw her sister sitting nude on _her_ throne, Ereshkigal understood for the first time what she had sometimes heard some of the new dead whisper about: a flame which erupted inside the body and governed the body’s actions, made it strive and push against all reason to attain its desire, be it the death of an enemy or the conquest of a beloved. 

Ereshkigal could hear her own blood whistling in her ears, felt herself sway with anger and want, but she kept ahold of herself. She was still the queen of the dark house, the keeper of laws which applied to everyone. _Everyone._ Even Inanna, the haughty, the proud, who had had no reason for what she had done except that she thought herself beyond rules, free to follow any whim and challenge any boundary. 

Ereshkigal bowed to the rules, and watched, and learned.

She smiled to see how swiftly Inanna’s proud flesh could be made inert and begin to rot, same as every other creature which came to Ereshkigal’s realm.

She listened to the distant rumble of the other gods’ dismay as crops failed, cattle slept rather than rut, men and women passed each other by as though blind. Everything had consequences.

When Tammuz, shedding bitter tears, took his lover Inanna’s place, and Tammuz’s sister Geshtinana pleaded to take his place, in turn, for one half of every year, Ereshkigal learned three things: love and bargains were a natural match; pursuit of one’s desire took precedence even over the object of that desire; and rules, once made, would be upheld no matter what, despite how Inanna laughed when the seven gates opened to let her leave, while Geshtinana thought herself fortunate to surrender half her life without a word of gratitude from her brother. 

Few were able to leave Ereshkigal’s realm, though all may enter it. The queen of mankind detained almost all her guests forever. When visitors did come, they always had a goal in mind, a desire they wished to see fulfilled. This was not a rule, but a fact. 

Nergal paid a visit to his aunt Ereshkigal because he had caused her servant, and therefore her, offense with his rudeness. Ereshkigal could only guess why he had behaved discourteously, what his mother Inanna had whispered in his ear since her ordeal in the dark house. Inanna may have plotted to rule even the dead through her son, since dominion over the living no longer satisfied her, but Ereshkigal laid her faith in rules, as always.

She laid her eyes on Nergal, with his erect stance, his strong thighs, his essence of war and the slaying sun, and she knew how the rules might be used to gain her her heart’s desire.

Inanna had taught her son well: he would not eat the food or drink the wine brought to him, he would not wash his feet or his hands, he would not even sit on the throne offered him, despite his open, hungry look at the empty chair. 

Ereshkigal called for bathwater and took off her robe. Really, she thought, keeping her smile a secret inside her breast, Inanna was a fool. She’d taught her son all the ways to circumvent the rules which would have made Nergal a part of the dark house, yet she hadn’t considered how lust, Inanna’s purview in the order of things, could set all plans awry. 

Ereshkigal took off her robe and poured clean water down her breast. Nergal, son of Inanna, the raging king, the furious one, seized her by her damp locks, pressed his body to hers, and claimed her as his own. Ereshkigal cried out and arched under him, and thought: _so that’s what that’s like._ She let the one her heart had set on plunder her and think himself the victor. Her body gripped him to her, ached for him even in her release. Outside the narrow windows, under the roof of dark earth, the dead murmured and sighed. 

Like mother, like son: Nergal laughed as he stole away, laughed as the seven gates opened to let him pass, thinking his power so great that none would dare detain him, never pausing to consider who must have given the order to let him leave, who commanded the gates between the dark house and the rest of everything. 

Ereshkigal rose from the bed, washed herself, and donned her robe and jewels. She rubbed chalk on her cheeks and dark juice on her lips, to give herself an aspect of one stricken. She prepared food and wine, a second throne and a larger bed to await Nergal’s return.

Then she cried out, unto the earth and the rivers and the heavens arched over all: _I have never known the sport of maidens and young wives. Send me back the god whom you sent here, and he did lie with me. Send me back the god who’s become my husband. Otherwise I am defiled and unfit to keep the laws and order the world. If you do not return him to me, the laws will be undone, the seven gates shall break open. I shall send the dead to devour the living, I shall send the dead to be more numerous than the living. The stars will spin down to scorch the earth, and the gods themselves will be undone._

Consequences could spiral and multiply, though not always. The threat was real enough, and so Ereshkigal cried out, not to lie or provoke, but to gain the one her heart desired, as was just and in accordance with the laws. Who knew the way of the world better than she?

Nergal laughed upon his return. He always laughed, a victor in his mind. Ereshkigal greeted him seated upon her throne, with the throne which was his waiting empty beside her. She let her husband drag her from her throne, let him seize her hair and kiss her lips, let him tear her clothes and scatter her beads across the floor and mount her right there, on the dais. His mother was always so adorned, and he was the god of pestilence and war and the midsummer sun: love and rage would be as one to him. 

Ereshkigal had lived always without knowing a man’s touch, and while her sister no doubt thought that she had got one over on her, Ereshkigal understood the rules far better than Inanna. She knew a wife wielded greater power than a mother. 

Let Inanna gaze into her polished bronze and think herself a clever one. Ereshkigal shook her hair for Nergal to seize as she rutted and laughed, taking her husband as he took her, alive with lust and victory in the close heart of her dark house.


End file.
